Self fulfilling
by Septdeneuf
Summary: After a seer gives every Straw Hat a vision of their future, Sanji thinks it's safe to share his prediction with Zoro. After all, the marimo couldn't care less if he died, right? Day 14 of the ZoSan christmas exchange.


_As a token of my appreciation I will grant each of you a look into your future… _

Honestly, when they'd met the self proclaimed medium and saved her island for somewhat unrelated reasons, Zoro hadn't believed her claim. Giving people visions of their future. It had all seemed like a hoax to him. And he had been opposed to it, anyway. Just like Luffy didn't want to know details about the One Piece, Zoro didn't want any prediction on whether or not he'd become the World's Greatest Swordsman. He wanted it to ultimately be his achievement, not the result of fate or foretold in any prophecy.

But when the medium had assured them that she'd only give them something from the next few weeks he'd agreed, if only to prove his skepticism right when it didn't actually happen.

Now here he was, though. On the island they'd just left he'd fought against the guy from his vision and defeated him with the exact same new move that had been predicted.

And he just couldn't help wondering if he would've done that move without the prophecy or if he'd only gotten the idea from what he'd seen. Had the prophecy made itself come true, just by virtue of him knowing it?

Zoro dabbed some more oil onto Shuusui's blade and kept polishing. Maybe it was pointless to think about it. He'd been the one with the skills to execute that maneuver after all. If someone else had seen that exact same vision they wouldn't have been able to replicate that move. They wouldn't have had the strength, dexterity and speed to pull it off. So it was his achievement, even if maybe it hadn't been his own idea.

"If you're just gonna sit there and take up space, at least guard the door, so Luffy doesn't get in before the cookies are done," the cook ordered distractedly.

"I got my eye on the door", Zoro replied casually. While he'd started to polish his swords, the Sunny had been caught in unexpected heavy snowfall, and he'd retreated into the galley, where the cook happened to be making cookies.

"I'm going to hold you personally responsible if Luffy burns his hands on the oven," Sanji said, not looking up from what he was writing. He was sitting at the table, opposite of the swordsman, staring intently at a notebook.

"Since when did you stop guarding your own cooking, anyway? Not up to the challenge anymore?" Zoro teased. The cook looked up from his writing, scrunched his nose a bit and then looked down without answering.

"What are you writing, anyway?" It was rare for the cook not to take up such bait.

"Letters and words, mostly. I'm sure it'd go right over your head," Sanji replied. Still not looking up from his notes.

Zoro decided to take a look for himself. Putting Shuusui down on the table he peered over to where the cook was sitting. It turned out not to be all that interesting, though. Just some recipe, written down in pretty excruciating detail, as far as Zoro could tell. It even had references where exactly the spices were in the Sunny's kitchen.

"Getting forgetful in your old age, cook?" Zoro asked mockingly. Diligently ignoring that the cook was actually a few months younger than him.

"What?" Finally Sanji looked up. He looked startled when he saw Zoro peering at his writing. He slammed the notebook shut, but then shook his head and opened it again. "I'm just writing down some recipes, what's wrong with that?"

"Scared to forget where you put the coriander?" Zoro clarified.

"What? No. This isn't for me", Sanji said with an irritated look and then looked back down at his writing.

"So who's it for, then? Pretty sure if you publish a cookbook the readers aren't going to organize their kitchens like you do."

Sanji paused for a moment. There was a far away look in his eyes, that Zoro wasn't sure how to interpret, but then he looked back down at his writing. "Shut up, it's not like you care."

Was it Zoro's imagination, or did the cook's voice sound a bit thicker just now? Was there something emotional about these recipes? He peered at the one currently open again. _Sea King steak. _If there was something special about that, then Zoro really had no idea what it was.

"You really don't care, do you?" Suddenly the cook's voice sounded angry. Even though Zoro had no idea why, he kinda liked the anger better. He knew how to deal with that. "I mean, I know we don't get along, but something like… that… would warrant some reaction, at least, shouldn't it?"

"What are you on about?" Zoro had a feeling it wasn't about recipe books anymore, but damned if he had an idea what it actually was about, now.

"It's… ugh, forget about it." Sanji turned the page in his notebook and carried on writing. Looked like the conversation was over, unless Zoro decided to badger the cook about his odd behavior, now. But he wasn't sure that would lead to anything worthwhile.

Just as Zoro picked up Shuusui again to continue polishing, Sanji suddenly said, "But then, if you really don't care, why not just tell you, it's not like knowing is a problem for you."

"Just make up your mind, already, cook. This back and forth with yourself is getting old," Zoro said.

"Your prophecy came true, didn't it? Yesterday, in that fight?" Sanji asked for whatever reason. He sounded more subdued now.

"Yeah, so?" They'd all told each other what the medium had shown them.

"And Nami-san's came true when she found that current, and Chopper found that anatomy book he was looking for, and Franky's hairdo malfunctioned…"

"Yeah, so? It's all supposed to happen within a few weeks, that's nothing surprising. What, you getting impatient about meeting that busty woman or whatever it was?" Would be just like the cook to be completely preoccupied because of some imaginary broad.

"That's not what I saw," Sanji said. Zoro looked up at that. "I lied."

"Why? What did you see, then?" There wasn't really any reason to lie. Not so smart to pick that as a lie, either. Nami had beaten the cook over the head for how he'd gushed about that future beauty he was going to meet.

"I'm gonna die."

Shuusui slipped from Zoro's grasp, and for once his reflexes weren't quick enough to catch it.

"_What?"_

"That's what I saw, I'll die. And the prophecies are all coming true around now, so I guess it won't be too long until… anyway, that's why I'm writing the recipes, and where stuff is, so you guys can cook enough to tide yourselves over until you find another chef."

"…what?"

The smell of cookies was filling the galley. Zoro felt Shuusui's hilt and the texture of the table under his hand. He saw the cook looking at him. None of it felt real.

"I didn't want to say anything, I didn't want to upset people, I mean I know they're gonna be upset, but there's not really any reason to upset them _now, _so it's just… anyway…" Sanji looked back down at his notebook. "Now where was I…?"

"That's not gonna happen," Zoro declared.

"All of the other things happened, why wouldn't this?", Sanji looked back up, and Zoro felt like he looked way too calm for what he'd just revealed.

"Because we're not going to let it," Zoro stated. His fingers twitched around Shuusui's hilt, even though he knew that there was no immediate enemy to defeat in the kitchen.

"And what makes you think that's even possible?" Sanji asked, sounding irritated.

"We didn't try to stop any of the other stuff, so of course it happened. That doesn't say anything about this," Zoro said.

"Well how do you know that trying to stop it isn't what makes it happen? Maybe the vision has accounted for all the reactions already, so that's what's going to happen."

"You sound like you want it to happen," Zoro accused. Sanji dropped his pen as he heard that.

"Are you insane? Of course I don't want it to happen, why would you even think that?"

"Because you're content to just let it!" That was maybe the most unnerving part about the cook's prediction. His calm acceptance of it.

"That's not… I just… I don't even know what to do about it, I don't know how to defend against this, I don't even really know what happens, I just saw myself, dead. I'm trying to keep myself busy here, writing recipes and cooking and pretending it's not real, because I'm scared that if I think too closely on what I'm not going to see, what I'm not going to do, I might just break down sobbing. And that doesn't help anyone."

He could hear the despair in Sanji's voice, and that was reassuring in a way, made him realize he wasn't stuck in some crazy opposite land, but that the cook was actually reacting like a human being. Not that he was right, because there had to be a way to fight this, and Zoro would find it…

"SANJI! COOKIES!" a rubbery red blur burst into the kitchen, followed by a brown and pink blur, and a panting sniper, effectively ending the conversation.

* * *

><p>Shortly after, they'd arrived at a new island. Just as the blizzard had announced, it was a winter island. Nami had assigned things for them to do, but Zoro hadn't really listened to her.<p>

Instead he'd followed the cook as he disembarked from the ship.

"Why are you following me?" Sanji asked after they'd gotten a few meters. "Pretty sure Nami-san wanted you to carry things for her."

"Carrying her own stuff for a change won't kill the sea witch," Zoro dismissed. Besides, Franky or Usopp or one of the other guys, with the exception of Luffy, could take care of the navigator's insatiable shopping sprees, too.

"Don't talk so disrespectfully about Nami-san," Sanji admonished.

"As I said, it won't kill her," Zoro repeated with a pointed look at the cook.

"Oh is that what this is?" Sanji asked, looking a bit uncertain as to how to take that. "How do you know you coming along will make any difference?"

"I don't. But it has to be better than leaving you all on your own." Whatever it was that was endangering the cook, by being there, he was at the very least doubling their chances. That had to be worth something.

"Why are you even bothering? I know you don't care, you don't have to pretend," Sanji reiterated. He sounded a bit bitter as he shoved his hands in his coat pocket.

"And what makes you think that?" Zoro challenged. He hadn't really had time to think about Sanji's assessment that he didn't care before, but now that he had the time it was starting to bother him. Sure they weren't the best of friends, but the cook didn't really think this little of their relationship, did he?

"I saw it," Sanji said. "In the vision, I saw people finding me, including you, and everyone reacted, everyone cared, except you, you just stood there with that scowl on your face you always have."

_Huh. _Zoro wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Because he was pretty sure that if he saw one of his nakama dead, no matter how irritating the person in question was, he would definitely react. But then the vision couldn't have spanned more than thirty seconds, Zoro's own had been about that length. Maybe the cook was misinterpreting something.

But Zoro didn't quite know how to say that, so he chose not to. It wouldn't matter, anyway, because he would make sure the shitty cook's prophecy didn't come true.

"Anyway, do you think it could happen here? Was there snow in your vision?" Zoro asked. When there was no answer he turned around to look at the cook.

Except he wasn't there.

Zoro spun a full 360 degree turn, but he couldn't see the cook anywhere. How had that happened?

Shitty cook, managing to get lost on a straight path.

Well, not that Zoro was seeing a path right now, but he was sure that was just because of all the snow.

But now after he'd turned, he wasn't so sure which direction he'd been going in, either. The cook couldn't have gotten too far yet, he would just have to find him and catch up with him and make sure he didn't get eaten by a Yeti or whatever it was that he'd seen in his vision.

Simple, really.

* * *

><p>Okay, maybe it could've been simpler. Zoro hadn't really been aware of walking around the snowy forest for that long, but the sky was beginning to grow darker, so apparently it had been a while.<p>

Maybe Zoro was a tiny bit lost. Not that he liked admitting that, but he was pretty sure they'd been on a road initially and he hadn't seen anything that looked like that in quite a while.

Except…

Now that he was looking more closely it seemed he'd finally found the path again. So it had to be only a matter of time until he'd see the cook. And undoubtedly listen to a tirade about how he was a little lost marimo or whatever. But this time he was willing to endure it. At least it would mean the cook was still alive.

Zoro made his way back to the path and followed it. He wasn't completely sure which direction was the right one, but he usually just improvised these things.

It wasn't long until he found some people on the road, and Franky's massive shape told him even from the distance that he knew this group. The people were all standing around something on the floor, and Zoro did his best to ignore the dread in his stomach. Instead he broke into a jog, passing by a little girl that was crying and some concerned looking islanders he didn't know.

"Sanji-kun, come on!" he heard Nami say, and he stopped in his tracks when he saw what they were huddled around.

It shouldn't have shocked him as much. He'd been warned. He knew this was going to happen.

But sitting safely in the warm galley, hearing the cook, alive and well, say it was not the same as standing in the cold harsh wind and looking at the cook's unmoving form, at his blue lips, and partially open, empty eyes.

It wasn't the same as hearing Nami, who'd been leaning over the cook say in a shaky voice, "He's not breathing."

The little girl was sobbing something about how she was sorry, and he'd saved her, but the current, and it had been so cold, but none of it really registered for Zoro. He could tell the others were moving, saying stuff, doing things, but he wasn't even really sure who was there and who wasn't.

All he could do was stand there and try to make sense of what he was looking at. He was staring at the cook, but that wasn't really what he was seeing. He saw an empty galley in the mornings, he saw Luffy becoming the pirate king but they couldn't celebrate with everyone, he saw himself staring into space when he should've been fighting with the cook, he saw them finding All Blue and no one really being able to appreciate it…

He felt like his stomach had been filled with ice, like the warm coat he was wearing wasn't protecting him at all. He felt like screaming, or throwing up, or running away, but he didn't do any of that.

He'd so stubbornly believed that he'd be able to stop this, hadn't even really entertained the idea that this would turn into reality that it just knocked the floor right out under him.

The sound of hooves made Zoro finally look up. Chopper was galloping towards them, and when he reached the group he transformed from walk point into brain point mid step.

"What's going on here?", he asked, already kneeling down to examine Sanji.

"He's… he's dead," Nami forced out, looking like Zoro felt, except she could still move.

"No he's not," Chopper declared. And suddenly Zoro felt like he could breathe again. "No one's dead below 37°C body temperature!"

And now Zoro could finally move again. He stepped closer and dropped to his knees next to the small doctor. "What do you need, what can we do?"

* * *

><p>The only light in the infirmary came from the heart monitor steadily beeping along. Before he'd went to sleep, Chopper had told Zoro how to turn off the continuous beeping and set it so it only made noise when there was something dangerous happening. But Zoro had left it alone. He liked having the beeping around. It was proof that the cook was back in the land of the living even if he hadn't made it into the land of the conscious, yet.<p>

Zoro still wasn't exactly sure how it had happened, anyway. Nami had explained something about a frozen river with nasty currents under the surface. Apparently the cook had saved some kids from there, but stayed in the ice cold water too long and lost to the current as his limbs got harder to move.

And he had to have known that that would happen. He had to have recognized the scenery, and known what it would mean for him to try to save these kids. But he'd done it anyway, in true love cook fashion.

What an idiot.

But Zoro found he couldn't really fault the cook for that. He could've been angry at the cook to just risk his life when he thought he was going to die, but sitting here now, listening to the steady beep beep of the heart monitor, Zoro found it hard to be angry about anything.

Oddly enough he felt some muscle ache coming on. They'd switched out doing the CPR, and even though the effort was negligible compared to his normal work out, it had still tired him. It was just such a different way of engaging his muscles.

And the feeling of having his nakama's life in his hands, would probably leave a strange aftertaste for quite a while. Not to mention the feeling of having a rib break while he did that. The cook would have to contend with several of those when he woke up again.

But that didn't matter. If he was alive to complain about it, then it was absolutely worth any lost rib.

Zoro wasn't quite over the shock of thinking Sanji might've been dead, yet. Not that there had been a lot of time to, but he felt like something fundamental had changed, and he couldn't really pinpoint what it was yet. He wasn't sure he could look at the cook in the same light again. But he didn't know what that meant.

As for now, he was content to just sit here and look at how the cook was breathing on his own, and listening to the heart monitor. Everything else would sort itself out when the time came.

A groan from the cook's direction had him perk up. Chopper had said it was unlikely for the cook to wake up during this night, but it seemed that Sanji was tougher than the little reindeer gave him credit for, even after having almost died.

"Whu…" Sanji said, and then tried to push himself up off the cot. Zoro put a hand on his shoulder to keep him down.

"Chopper says you shouldn't move too much, right now," he instructed.

"What… ugh…" The cook blinked in confusion a few times, and Zoro decided it was time for some illumination. The cook flinched as Zoro turned on the tiny desk lamp, and he felt like blinking himself, after having spent all this time in the dark.

"Huh… still alive, then," Sanji said, finally back to coherence, it seemed.

"Yeah. You owe Chopper a boatload of cotton candy, cook," Zoro said.

"But… it really looked like I was… guess the vision wasn't all that accurate, then," Sanji said. He still sounded a little dazed.

"What, disappointed?" Zoro asked sardonically. The slight smile and the look of wonder on the cook's face already told him otherwise, but teasing was the way the swordsman knew how to interact with the blond.

"No. Pretty pleased, actually. Are you? Disappointed that is?" Despite Zoro's earlier warning, Sanji pushed himself up on his elbows a bit to look at him.

"Why would I be disappointed?" Zoro asked irritably.

"I saw how you reacted, remember," the cook said, a look of superiority on his face that was supremely annoying to see. But alive cook being annoying was still infinitely preferable to one that wasn't breathing. "And it's not like you cared, and you don't even like me, so…"

"You… that's…" Zoro had no idea how to explain that him just standing there didn't mean he didn't care, but that he'd been frozen to the spot while it had felt like his world was crashing down around him. He wasn't even sure he wanted to explain that. But he had to make the cook realize that he was wrong about this somehow. "I… you… Argh!"

Words were failing him. He wasn't even completely sure what he was trying to say, and that didn't help when trying to phrase it. Maybe actions would be a better solution.

As he neared the cook he wasn't completely sure what he was going to do, but then suddenly Chopper's words from earlier echoed in his head. "_Absolutely no hugging!" _he'd told Luffy when the captain had been overjoyed that Sanji had finally regained his heartbeat. _"After resuscitation the circulation is still unstable, so moving him would be really bad." _

Well… when the alternative idea popped into his head, the most shocking thing was how natural it seemed. Maybe that was the fundamental thing that had changed, or maybe it had always been there and it had taken this for him to realize it. But it did explain why thinking that the cook might be dead had hit him that hard.

He leaned down, ignoring the cook's raised eyebrow as he approached, and pressed his lips to the blond's.

Zoro only lingered a moment, enough to make his intentions clear. As he moved back he was tempted to laugh at the cook's look of utter surprise, but he kept himself in check.

"I should go get Chopper, he wanted me to wake him if you woke up," Zoro said, and turned around, not leaving the cook time to process what had just happened. There would probably be hell to pay, but Zoro felt oddly light and happy. He could deal with the fall out later.

"O…oi! Wait! What was that?! You can't just do that and walk away, hey! I'm talking to you!"

A grin spread on Zoro's face as the cook's indignant yelling followed him out of the infirmary. No doubt this would be an interesting new challenge to sort out.

He couldn't wait.


End file.
